Mistletoe & Merriment | A Collection of Christmas Stories

Christmas on Klearing Street

Maybe it's fair to say that for me, Christmas was something that meant free things I'd been coveting all year and chocolate chip double dipped salted caramel cookies.

I mean, at first, it had been something special. Like every little girl, I had those memories of elongated packages that could only be Barbie dolls and the letter to Santa Claus your parents would take from you with a smile and a promise to deliver it with a million stamps so it'd reach the North Pole. I had mastered the look of faux glee when opening socks and dresses when all I wanted was something to play with. And after everything was finished, after all of the toys were assembled, new dresses tried on, I'd be happy. At least for a little while. And then I'd want different things. The cycle continued.

But I guess it wasn't really until this year that I realized my story wasn't like "most" little girls. I was privileged and spoiled, excused and scolded with a playful smile instead of a finger shaking in anger. It never occurred to me, until I was seated across from David Bruster at Christmas dinner that I was, wholeheartedly and most assuredly, the brattiest eighteen-year-old girl on this side of the river.

I suppose every story starts with something that was once always the same changing in some way. In order for anything to be worth telling, it's got to be special. And mine starts here--at the church building my parents got married in twenty-four years before, on a Saturday evening, in the same town I'd lived in my whole life.

-------------------------------

The weather was the harsh promise of winter, snow falling in what felt like already-formed snowballs. There's the pretty kind of snow, the gentle, soft kind that reminds you of fluffy down jackets and fuzzy socks and hot chocolate, and then there's the ugly kind that sticks to the sides of the road in hurried grey slumps--falls too quickly and heavily to be anything other than inconvenient. This was the ugly kind, and as I hopped from foot to foot, trying to keep warm, I couldn't help but wish I were at home, or with Jessica, instead of outside, freezing, waiting for some stupid charity thing.

This was a new idea my mom had hurriedly signed us up for when she had been told by her assistant that she needed to be seen doing something charitable this season to keep morale high. My mother was running for local government and had every intention of winning. With her smooth blonde hair, Lululemon-sporting yoga-doing body, and a smile that was whiter than she was (which is really saying something) she was your typical small-town mommy blogger type of woman. But the worst part was, she was genuinely kind. Far kinder than my dad, who was still at home, tucked into work and computer screens and phone calls, while my mom was here in the snow with me, her eyes too cheerful and smile too filled with glee to possibly be related to me.

"Georgia," my mother said to me, her bedazzled Christmas sweater catching the snow between sequins, "Isn't this just the nicest thing you could possibly imagine?"

I shifted so that I was facing her so that she could see the eye roll I mustered up, "Mom, you're kidding. It's like ten degrees right now."

Plus, the church was supposed to open ten minutes ago. They do this thing every year where they give back to the community by assigning families a "foster family" for the holiday season. Which means, basically, rich people buy not-so-rich people presents and let them eat dinner with them. I figured if my mom needed someway to prove she was mayor material, this was a good way to show she gave back to the community. If it helped my mom, I didn't see too much of a problem with it. I just wished the church would've opened when it said it would.

"I hope we get a family with little kids. I miss buying toys and little gifts for you guys. All you and Tommy want nowadays is video games and makeup."

I thought about the possibility of little kids and felt myself get a little excited as well. Tommy, my little brother, was never much fun. It's like he came out of the womb fixated on a computer screen. It would be a Christmas miracle if he had anything to do with us--especially since I knew my mom had bought him Black Ops for Christmas, even though she routinely told him to read a book or maybe even, go outside. I frequently wondered if Tommy knew what the sun looked like.